Nature writing has often been accused of wearing an enraptured face and expensive shoes. Some years ago, Kathleen Jamie wrote in the London Review of Books that there is something proprietorial and class-ridden about a great deal of writing about the natural world; white men striding out in conquering boots in search of the wild. For those who find themselves in sympathy with Jamie, Sooyong Park’s book, translated from Korean by Jamie Chang, will be an antidote.

There is nothing performative or easily gained about Park’s knowledge of the Ussuri forests and the Siberian tigers who live there. It is knowledge that the documentary-maker built up over painstaking years of tracking and hideouts, of six months spent in a two-metre square bunker in -30C weather without standing upright or turning on a light.

A good deal of the book is spent describing life in the observation bunkers, which is fascinating in the way that trench life is fascinating. Park forbade himself any food with an odour that might alert tigers to his presence; he survived for six months at a time on frozen rice balls, seaweed, jerky and green tea. Excrement was sealed in multiple containers and stored in the bunker. His companions were base camp, with which he had brief radio communication, and families of mice. And, occasionally, tigers.

The Siberian tiger is hunted for its genitals, which are thought to have aphrodisiac propertiesCredit:
Alamy

Once, the Siberian tiger population was 10,000; now it is 350. They are the victims of dwindling forestry, of their own beauty and of the myths that surround them. Because a female mates 60 times in the two or three days of her ovulation, there are people who believe (very much mistakenly) that eating male tiger genitalia will enhance their own sexual prowess. The word Viagra, Park notes, is Sanskrit for “tiger”, and there is a thriving black market, based largely in China, for their organs and skins.

Wild tigers sell for far more than those reared in captivity; zoo tigers, Park writes, will often look shabby and ungroomed, whereas wild tigers lick themselves assiduously to minimise their odour and hide themselves from their prey, making their coats glossy. A tiger reared in captivity will sell for $3,000 to $5,000; a wild tiger for upwards of $30,000. Park recounts being asked for footage of the tigers by the boss of the second-largest crime organisation in the eastern Russian city of Khabarovsk; to use, he explains, in adverts on Chinese television. Park is harassed for months after he refuses; the following year, the man is shot in the head in a struggle between rival crime organisations. Blood follows the path of tigers, both in the natural and the human world.

Park’s writing is a patchwork of lyricism, close zoological detail and occasional ventriloquism of the tiger’s thoughts. “It would take just a moment for the pesky humans to clear out, and he’d soon be able to continue on his way. That’s what he had always done, and that’s what he would do today.” There will be those who prefer their nature writing less coloured by anthropomorphism, by conjecture, by poetry. But if any man living is qualified to interpret the gradations in tiger behaviour as emotional responses – and it may be that nobody is – it is Park.

The book is a love letter and, like most love letters, it is in no hurry. Park writes about the rarely seen domestic life of tigers. “Kharjain waved his tail like a slithering snake and teased the cub. The cub tried to catch the tail, pouncing on it, standing up on its hind legs like a bear, and then falling over. Like a father who didn’t want to discourage his child, Kharjain lowered his tail and let the cub bite it.” There is faith, here, in hidden things and in lower decibels.

Above all, though, the book is a record of how heavily the odds are stacked against the tigers’ survival. Park writes that “Ussuri tigers’ vigilance goes beyond anything we humans can imagine”, and some tigers have learnt to approach guns from behind, from bitter experience. But the matriarch Bloody Mary dies, killed by a rifle trap and cascading intestines as she runs through the forest. Her son White Sky dies, strangled by a poaching wire; Park finds him covered in maggots.

White Sky’s sister White Snow, starving, risks approaching the main camp to steal the camp dog for her cubs. The dog cannot provide enough meat for the famished cubs; while the mother is hunting again the cubs squabble over the dog’s skull; the male cub kills his sister and begins to eat her. Park finds the tracks of White Snow circling the dead female cub: “There was sadness in her tracks – the agony of a mother who couldn’t leave but couldn’t stay, either.”

To prevent black-market bartering of her body, they cremate her; a forest ranger speaks at the pyre: “I’m sorry. Forgive us, little one. The forest used to be beautiful and full of things to eat, but there are so many problems now.” The male cub is later hit by a car.

Park’s book is a testament to how hard it is to undo the things that humans have done. It is filled with photographs and the certainty that tigers are among the most intelligent, sophisticated and beautiful animals on Earth. To read it is to hear the voice of a remarkable man. The choice is in the hands of humans, whether the book will stand as a warning flare or an obituary.

Katherine Rundell’s novel The Wolf Wilder is published by Bloomsbury Children’s